Sick chicken with weak leg

[Eggcessive]

We, did some research of our own and found that Marek is present in New Zealand (vets are just hopeless), the problem is that we do not have access to any vaccines that we can obtain and the vets do not have poutry vaccination service either. But I still don't think that it is Marek as she shows no symtoms in her pupil or skin and others that she was a part of isn't showing any symtoms either. But sometimes you never know, we will try to get her a blood test at another vet tomorrow, hopefully we will find out what's wrong with her, have my fingers crossed.

I would keep treating her with vitamins and good nutrition as long as you have the time to care for her. It's possible that it is something she could recover from in times.
Even in this country (US) it can be difficult to test for Mareks without a necropsy. There is a PCR test for Mareks available, but recently when I was looking for a poultry college lab for someone else, it seems that they may not be doing them anymore.
With Mareks, there are 4 types of the disease--the ocular (eye) type, one that causes skin tumors, tumors on the nerves thatcause paralysis, and one that causes tumors in internal organs. Only one type or several can show up, and there are several strains of Mareks, which are constantly changing to become vaccine resistant.
One can vaccinate a chicken later, but that chicken may have already been exposed in their environment. Even with a newly vaccinated chick at a day old, that chick is not fully immune for 2-3 weeks afterward, so it has to be kept in an environment free of the disease.
Here are some good links that you may want to read about Mareks disease:
https://extension.unh.edu/resources/files/Resource000791_Rep813.pdf
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/the-great-big-giant-mareks-disease-faq
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek's_disease

 

[Skotadi]

HELP, one of our 8 week old chicks suddently fell ill today without any warnings, he was fine and lively yesterday when he returned to the coop but this morning we noticed that he didn't come out with the others and found him lying down in the coop with his feet pointing in the air. He is completely unable to walk but still kicks if you hold him, he is also breathing through his beak; are these signs of Marek? I assumed that Marek is gradual paralysis starting with limping unlike his situation which happened suddenly overnight. Already lost alot of chicks due to an incubator malfunction and our sick girl prior, it have not been a good year for us.

 

[Skotadi]

We left the barred rock with the vet yesterday for further inspections,if nothing can be found than they will have to do a necropsis. We are suspecting zinc poisoning as well as the galvanized flooring was rusting and peeling off, just have to wait for the results.
We just realized for how sick chick that this is the third time that when new chickens joins the group, they all fell ill within 3 days to different symtoms, and they were all isolated cases. Two were Silkies and one is a Lavender Orpington. One of the Silkies had a stargazing posture and eventually died when her ear started bleeding, the other is just difficult breathing but worming medicine have some effect, and stops feeding as soon as we stop the medicine, she never fully recovered and seems to have stopped growing as well. The third case is the Lavender Orpington which is the most confusing for us, because he went to the wrong coop, we had to put him back to his coop at night and he was really well, trying to escape like he always does, and this morning he just lied there unable to move.
We may have to start the flock over from scratch and buy from our trusted breeders only, all the problems seems to have started when we introduced four brown shavers, it is actually a breeder we have know for a while but it seems that we made a bad choice.

 

[Eggcessive]

Sorry about your 8 week old now showing signs of illness. Try to get him to drink water with electrolytes and vitamins. Hopefully it is not Mareks, but there seems to be something going on whether it is Mareks, some type of poisoning, or something else.

 

[Skotadi]

The 8 week old (actually I think he is 10 week old, we raised him from dayold so I didn't realize how fast he has grown) just died, he had diarrhea (alot of clear liquid with chunks) and was puking clear liquid, its happened so quickly we were shocked. From the time we found him till his death only took less than an hour, we will be sending his body for dissection to determine what the issue is. We are definately thinking of restarting our flock fresh again, it hurts to cull all the young chicks we raised from hatchlings, but if this epidemic continues then they will die sooner or later.

 

[Skotadi]

I think I found the cause of death for our young orpington, he went through our fence yestrerday and got in to a field full of buttercups, he must have grazed on them and in turn caused his death, one of our paddock is littered full of buttercups, will need to get rid of them, didn't realise that it was this toxic.

 

[Skotadi]

Every thing was resolved today as the lab results came back, our barred rock had Zinc poisoning and the young Orpington had Chlamydia which may still be infecting our flock. Good to know that it is not Mareks and these are all treatable.

 

[soulazen]

testing

 

[BGW]

Every thing was resolved today as the lab results came back, our barred rock had Zinc poisoning and the young Orpington had Chlamydia which may still be infecting our flock. Good to know that it is not Mareks and these are all treatable.

Zinc from a feeder or from giving too much vitamin additives?